Sneezing

Some Catholics attribute to St. Gregory the use of the
benediction “God bless you,” after sneezing, and say that he enjoined
its use during a pestilence in which sneezing was a mortal symptom, and
was therefore called the death-sneeze. Aristotle mentions a similar
custom among the Greeks; and Thucydides tells us that sneezing was a
crisis symptom of the great Athenian plague. The Romans followed the
same custom, and their usual exclamation was “Absit omen!” We
also find it prevalent in the New World among the native Indian tribes,
in Sennaar, Monomatapa, etc. etc.

It is almost incredible how ancient and how widely diffused is the
notion that sneezing is an omen which requires to be averted. The
notion prevailed not only in ancient Greece and Rome, but is existent
in Persia, India, and even Africa. The rabbins tell us that Jacob in
his flight gave a sneeze, the evil effects of which were averted by
prayer.

In the conquest of Florida, when the Spaniards arrived, the Cazique,
we are told, sneezed, and all the court lifted up their hands and
implored the sun to avert the evil omen.

In the rebellion of Monomatapa, in Africa, the king sneezed, and a
signal of the fact being given, all the faithful subjects instantly
made vows and offerings for his safety. The same is said respecting
Sennaar, in Nubia, in Sweden, etc.

The Sadder (one of the sacred books of the Parsees) enjoins
that all people should have recourse to prayer if a person sneezes,
because sneezing is a proof that the “Evil Spirit is abroad.”

Foote, in his farce of Dr. Last in His Chariot, makes one of
the consulting doctors ask why when a person sneezes, all the company
bows? and the answer given was that “sneezing is a mortal symptom which
once depopulated Athens.”